They are who we thought they were. Those are the Philadelphia Eagles and the New York Giants.
The Giants entered the NFC East showdown on Sunday with a 7-4-1 record, but the quality of their wins this year has been in question as this team’s true talent and skill level is evaluated on a week-by-week basis. The Eagles have been the best team in the NFL this year, now with a 12-1 record, and they’ve looked as good as their record suggests with a dominant 48-22 road victory against a division rival.
The Eagles are certified Super Bowl contenders, while the Giants look like a team that has some work to do before they have a roster capable of winning sustainably.
This is not a bad place for the Giants. Winning games is hard in the NFL and any time you can get yourself into the playoffs is a good thing. However, the Giants still need a large influx of talent if they are to have a chance to repeat their success in the win-lose column next season. Their defense doesn’t quite have the requisite talent to execute the aggressive plan that defense coordinator Wink Martindale likes to implement. The forward needs to figure out their plan as a quarterback and add a few extra guns to the outside. Brian Daboll and Mike Kafka have done a pretty good job with the pieces they have, but there’s just a different level of production and consistency that they need to be able to pull off.
Unfortunately, that won’t be fixed until the off-season when they get a chance to step back and tinker with the roster. It was just obvious that there’s a huge gap between where the Giants are and where the Eagles are, and that’s where every NFL team wants to be. A team capable of walking into the home of a quality division rival and beating them just so far that the game seemed unattainable from the first drive. Jalen Hurts set fire to the Giants’ secondary side, the offensive line destroyed space for Miles Sanders, and the defense was down for most of the game. As far as Super Bowl contenders go, the Eagles are the clear favorite in the NFC and the best team from top to bottom in the NFL.
The Eagles simply have too many offensive options for a defense that lacks depth like the Giants. Hurts has made progress in throwing the ball and he has even more chances to show that talent if he gets protection like he did today against the Giants. The Giants are a spirited team, the Eagles are a dominant team. At the very least, the Eagles have laid out the blueprint on how to make the Giants one of the best teams in the league again: keep investing in the trenches on both sides of the ball and go hard after offensive playmakers. Hurts has developed into a good player in his own right, but life has obviously been made easier with guys like DeVonta Smith and AJ Brown to throw at – both of whom were acquired using first-round picks.
It will take time, but at least the Giants have shown they have a coaching staff that can keep them competitive as they begin their first full off-season in a few months. The Eagles are just on a different level and are once again raising the bar for the entire league this week.
